The Roommate
by peroxidepest17
Summary: Shuuji and Akira live together, and it’s not weird at all.


**Title: **The Roommate  
**Universe:** Nobuta wo Produce  
**Theme/Topic:** N/A  
**Rating:** PG  
**Character/Pairing/s:** Shuuji, Akira (light ShuujixAkira)  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** Spoilers for the end of the series like WOAH. Also, OOC times a billion.  
**Word Count:** 1,573  
**Summary:** Shuuji and Akira live together, and it's not weird at all.  
**Dedication:** Ann- Your subliminal messaging worked? I guess? LOL  
**A/N:** WOW This is dumb. I THINK IT'S ALL THE BOYBAND FIC LOBBING OFF PARTS OF MY BRAIN EVERY TIME I READ/WRITE THEM. It can't be helped. I'm only writing with like, 30 of my brain cells now I guess. XD  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine.  
**Distribution:** Just lemme know.

* * *

They saw each other every day during high school, and so it only made sense that they be roommates in college too. After that they'd gotten so used to living with each other that Nobuta suggested that they do the same after college, so they wouldn't be lonely moving to a brand new city when they went out looking for jobs (or rather, Shuuji did).

It made sense, and so on her final night in Japan before going abroad to study journalism in America, they told her that they'd decided to move in together as per her suggestion (they knew that she would worry less about them while she was overseas that way). She seemed happy to hear that they would still be staying together even after graduation, and after that, the three of them spent the rest of the night talking about everything and nothing before Shuuji had to drive them all to the airport to see her off. He and Akira both cried as the plane took off, and neither of them cared who saw it.

The two of them had been living with each other ever since.

Which, as far as Shuuji was concerned, was just part of the normal grind of the everyday and nothing much more than that. To him, there was nothing weird about it at all. Other people might have figured differently, but he'd learned not to care so much about what they thought over the years.

Though he did however, decide to stop bringing girls back to the apartment sometime after the fourth or fifth one met Akira, and like all of those who came before her, issued Shuuji the ultimatum of, "either I go or your weird roommate goes."

The last time such a thing happened, it involved one of the girls from work who had asked him out. She ended up storming out of the apartment after Shuuji had simply blinked at her oh-so-familiar demand, thought about it for about two seconds, and then pointed to his roommate with a rather simplistic, "I choose him, then."

Akira hadn't helped the situation any by whooping and throwing his fists in the air triumphantly upon hearing Shuuji's decision, the taller boy standing there in the middle of the hallway between the soon-to-be-exes, barefoot and in his boxers with his bangs tied up over his head and the drying remains of a free sample beauty mask he'd gotten at the grocery that day still on his face. "Akira win! Still champion! Ka-pow!" he declared, before padding right past the jilted woman and towards the kitchenette so he could get some potato chips and a soda.

Shuuji's date had gaped at them both. "I don't believe this!" she hissed, clearly wounded. "I _knew _you were too pretty to be normal," she felt inclined to add (rather maliciously) before she was out the door without a backwards glance.

Once she was gone, Akira returned with a bag of salt and seaweed flavored Calbee and offered some to Shuuji.

Shuuji didn't take any, and Akira only shrugged before taking more for himself.

"You really need to put on some pants," was all Shuuji could think to say.

"Pants bring up the air conditioning bill. And hey, you picked me! That was nice," Akira beamed, just like he did every time this happened. He poked Shuuji in the cheek with a greasy finger.

Shuuji swatted at him irately. "I just didn't end up liking her in the end, idiot," he said by rote, and tried not to think about it too deeply afterwards.

Besides, it was true anyway. He _didn't_ end up liking any of them in the end, even when he tried to genuinely get to know them when they first asked him out. So he stopped bringing them home after that final incident had ended up making things at work the next day _very awkward_, and eventually, he learned to just say no right away when anyone asked him out, because it saved him a lot of trouble in the end.

Instead, he spent most of his free nights at home watching movies with Akira on the couch and staying up until the wee hours of the morning waiting for it to turn evening in America so they could huddle over the phone receiver together and call Nobuta, find out how she was doing and about the new friends she was making and how much fun she was having.

And when it was just like that, Shuuji didn't think his life was weird at all. He and Akira, and Nobuta on the phone every now and again—it was the most normal thing to him in the world.

It wasn't until his little brother asked if niisan was ever going to get married that Shuuji realized that his life with Akira might actually be a little bit weird after all. He just hadn't noticed.

"Married? I haven't thought about it," he responded, honestly.

The younger boy scoffed, and over the phone it sounded like a cat sneezing. "You're getting _old_, niisan."

Shuuji was pretty certain that 23 was not old. "I'm not old."

"Well, whatever you decide to do is fine. Our parents like Akira-kun anyway."

Pause. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"And _I_ plan on getting married, so it's doubly fine. I'll be the responsible son."

"Wait…_what_?"

"Nothing. Just…niisan seems happiest when he's with Akira-kun, is all."

Shuuji didn't know what to say about that.

"Anyway, are you going to help me with this English stuff or not? You know dad's no use."

"Ah…right."

Shuuji continued to help Koji with his homework after that, and tried not to think about what the little brat was implying for the rest of the night.

It only lasted up until the moment he put the phone back in the cradle. Because when he looked up again there was Akira, sauntering into the living room wearing his boxers and with his bangs tied up over his forehead again, though this time he was also clad in a yellow-and-white checkered apron with a row of baby ducks walking happily across the front.

"Soup!" Akira shouted, and waved his ladle around like he was announcing the arrival of some foreign royalty or something. "I mixed the red miso and the white miso 'cuz I thought there would be pink miso but it just turned brown. Kindergarten was wrong."

Shuuji stared at him for a moment.

Akira blinked. Stopped waving his ladle. "Do I have something on my face?" he asked, after Shuuji didn't say anything right off.

He did have something on his face as it turned out, but that wasn't why Shuuji was staring at him.

Akira flapped his arms a few times after that, because he figured if he was going to get stared at he might as well be entertaining.

He tried a back flip.

He came back up with the apron flipped over his head.

"Ah, I'm blind! It's the sun!"

Shuuji eventually sighed and stood. "It's six at night, stupid."

"Then why aren't we eating soup?!" Akira demanded, and swatted the apron out of his face.

"Because you probably put something weird in it again," Shuuji said, sensibly.

"Instant udon!" Akira reported faithfully. "The noodles were a little old so they crumbled when I stirred them. They're like little baby noodles. With wrinkles. Old babies?"

"Great," Shuuji responded, and let Akira lead him to the table.

They sat down to eat and Akira ladled out two big bowlfuls of brown miso with wrinkled old instant udon noodles crumbled in it.

Shuuji took a bite, decided there was nothing wrong with it, and swallowed. After a few mouthfuls he asked, "Ne, Akira."

"Ne, Shuuji."

"How come you never bring any girls back here?"

Akira cocked his head to the side. "Should I?"

"Well…if you ever wanted to, you don't have to hold back for my sake."

The taller boy shrugged. "I'd choose you."

A moment.

"…what?"

"I don't need to bring them back 'cuz when they say 'me or him humph!' I already know I'd say 'him' and so what's the point?"

Shuuji blinked and tried to make some sort of sense of that in his head. Luckily he had been interpreting Akira-speak for a long time now, and figured it out quickly (or pretty quickly compared to most normal people anyway). "Oi. I never brought them back because I wanted to see if…"

Pause. Sigh. Maybe. Who knew? Did it matter?

He cleared his throat and took another sip of his soup rather than finish what he'd been saying. "Nevermind. This is fine just like this, right?"

"Needs potato chips," Akira said, after a moment of deep and profound thought.

He went to get potato chips.

When he came back, Shuuji watched him crumble a handful of those salt and seaweed flavored Calbee into his miso soup and crunch up the rest of his meal happily. To Shuuji, it was not weird at all.

In fact, it was pretty damned normal as far as he could tell.

For _them_, anyway. He wasn't sure what the rest of the world would make of it.

But then again, he wasn't sure he _cared _either.

He sighed to himself at that, and as he finished his dinner, he supposed that he really ought to be more responsible and say something to his parents sometime soon.

Good thing they actually liked Akira.

**END**


End file.
